Brexit: How has immigration changed since the referendum?

It looks like the government’s immigration system after Brexit will make the process for EU migrants the same as for people coming from the rest of the world.

Successive Conservative-led governments since 2010 have repeated a promise to try to reduce net migration to the “tens of thousands” – in other words, to less than 100,000. Net migration is the number of people coming to live in the UK, minus the number of people leaving to live elsewhere.

This figure has not been met since 1997, when net migration was about 50,000.

The most recent figures show that in the year to June 2018 net migration was 273,000.

While there has been a considerable fall in net migration from European Union countries since the referendum in June 2016, net migration from elsewhere (the type the UK currently has more control over) is at its highest level since 2004.

Who’s leaving?

Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, all EU net migration has been decreasing but the biggest fall has been in numbers of people from the so-called EU8 – poorer than average countries that joined the bloc in 2004, such as Poland and the Czech Republic.

EU8 net migration was two-thirds (66%) lower in June 2018 than it was in June 2016.

Net migration from the EU15 – the older, more established and typically richer members – has fallen by 40% in the same period.

Migration from the two newest countries, Bulgaria and Romania, halved to 34,000 during that time.

In 2015-16, 19% of nurses joining the NHS were of EU nationality, while in 2017-18 this fell to 8%. Meanwhile, the percentage of nurses leaving the NHS with an EU nationality rose from 9% to 13%.